Seroprevalence of Toxoplasmosis among blood donors in a Tertiary Care Teaching Hospital in South India

Abstract

Blood transfusion is a life saving contrive, also associated with various infectious risks. Transfusion transmissible infectious agents are among the greatest threats to blood safety of the patients who receive blood. Screening of all types of infectious diseases before transfusion is a hectic task now in transfusion medicine. Malaria is the most important protozoan disease transmitted by blood transfusion followed by toxoplasmosis. It is one of the notifiable communicable diseases among rural and urban population. Serological screening of Toxoplasma gondii is very important to prevent such infection transmission. We evaluated the seroprevalence of T. gondii in healthy population of blood donors in Tiruchirapalli, South India. A total of 207 serum samples collected from healthy voluntary blood donors was tested for T. gondii antibodies by IgM ELISA serology. Out of 207 subjects, 46 (22.2%) were seropositive to T. gondii. The prevalence of T. gondii antibodies showed high in our study in healthy voluntary blood donors. Thus we suggested to include the screening of T. gondii as a priority test in all pretransfusion blood testing schedule